


Razh

by lazarwolff



Category: Pacific Rim (Movies)
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Married Couple, Married Life, Mentions of the old country, Mushrooms, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-30
Updated: 2019-03-30
Packaged: 2019-12-26 18:44:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18288077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazarwolff/pseuds/lazarwolff
Summary: Hermann has an abiding love for hunting mushrooms. Newt is carried away on the wave of his enthusiasm.





	Razh

Newt is piddling his office hours away, jitterbugging between marking papers and making his way through a brainy sci-fi book Hermann insisted he try. Hermann knows Newt prefers his sci-fi to have a lot more weird creatures and planet-hopping, but it doesn’t stop him from pushing the latest mind-expanding novel on his husband. Newt always gets through the first couple of chapters, at least, before discreetly returning the book to Hermann’s bedside table. At least this one has psychic cocoons called imagos, a pretty great touch from the seventies submerged in amber-like prose.

There’s an urgent knock on his door, and Newt puts his book aside, not without relief. His need for constant stimulus means any situation that can be classified as waiting, even if it’s in his office with a million distractions, makes him feel trapped and frustrated. A student with questions is an actual oy, and he wishes more of his undergrads would drop by during office hours.

But it’s not a student, it’s  _ Hermann,  _ which is even better.

“Yes, oh my god,” Newt grins. “I’m going berserk in here, Hermann, please say you’re here to keep me company. I’m so bored.”

He doesn’t register the giant wicker basket, like a Jane Austen character’s hat except upside down, until Hermann wheels all the way into the office, a gleam in his eyes.

“The rain lifted,” he says by way of explanation.

If it could be called rain. Lately, their campus town has been overtaken with a gloomy mist, hell on Hermann’s joints and which of course only cleared when Newt had office hours. He looks wistfully out the window at the bright day he’s been prevented from. He can’t even open the windows.

“And we’re celebrating with a basket?” he says. Hermann rolls his eyes.

“ _ Mushrooms,  _ Newton.”

“Oh-kay?”

“They will be fruiting!” Hermann is in full chalkboard mode. “If we are terribly lucky, we may chance upon a few potable specimens, to say nothing of morels.”

He’s really cute when he’s excited to the point of incensed impatience, Newt thinks, a little twitterpated. He forgot Hermann’s abiding love for mushroom-hunting, Well, forgot isn’t the right word, he just hasn’t thought of it in a while. He cherishes the tender childhood memory of walking through the Black Forest with Mum and Karla and being shown the safe mushrooms with a gentle hand, appreciating the tempting beauty of the dangerous ones, and loving all of them just the same.

“I guess you’ll want the car.”

“Oh, really! You’re coming with me.”

“I’ve got office hours.”

“Which none of your un _ grrate _ ful students are using, dearest,” Hermann points out with his usual acid. “Send an e-mail with your excuse and let’s disperse.”

“You’re telling me, I should abandon some of this fine institution’s finest minds, for the mere possibility of morels?”

“I know you’re being facetious, but yes. If this blasted nation were the least bit civilized, the day after spring rain would be a holiday.”

He’s deadly serious. Newt can usually tell when Hermann’s joking (usually -- Hermann’s deadpan is shocking in its subtlety) and he isn’t at all right now.

“Cool,” Newt says. “Let me get my keys, and we’ll go.”

Hermann is already out of the office and halfway down the hall by the time Newt crafts a shoddy sign for his office door (‘IOU office hours- Family Emergency omg! -N.’) and locks up.

“So the irony of you  _ forcing  _ me to shirk my duties, duties you have more than once described as ‘sacred’...”

“Lost on me, darling.” Hermann smiles blithely. “And I’d hardly say I forced you.”

They’re going to the accessible trail on the outskirts of town. Hermann reckons there are a couple promising sites in the deeper part of the woods, where the soil is always dark and surely damp today. Newt nods along, gripping the armrest of the passenger seat like a granny while Hermann drives.

“I’ll make you that soup you like so much,” Hermann continues, glancing over to Newt while he creeps on a red light.

“And you’re sure you’re up for this?”

“Of course. I have sharp eyes and a highly competent husband at my side. I daresay we’ll make quite a team.”

Newt’s heart goes funny, and he doesn’t say anything else in the shockingly short time it takes for them to get to the trail.

It’s a little muggy now, with the sun and all, but Newt doesn’t mind, walking by Hermann in companionable silence. They come across a patch of nearly perfect puffballs, which Newt endeavours to collect.

“I like them for stirfry,” he says while Hermann audibly judges. “And you like them too.”

“Very well. Though I might remind you they grow in our backyard.”

“Yeah sweetheart, I know.”

Newt rolls his eyes. Hermann will appreciate the puffballs later, glazed in a fairly ingenious mock General Tso’s chicken, of which Newt is the proud inventor.

Right now, though, Hermann is single-minded, eyes scanning the ground in a thirty-foot radius and pointing to an area he finds promising so Newt can be dispatched. They find several russulas, useful and harmless but quite common, and then they come across a happy cluster of porcini under an old pine which provides welcome shade. Hermann takes out the paring knife he has for this specific purpose, and slices off their woody stems, inspecting for larvae. Newt lies against the tree and shuts his eyes, listening to the gentle breeze in the treetops and Hermann’s absentminded humming.

“Doctor Gottlieb!” someone calls out, and Newt opens his eyes again. A young woman with the telltale basket of intrepid mushroom hunting, apparently ubiquitous amongst logicians, smiles and waves. “You got him out of office hours, then?”

“Handily,” Hermann calls back, and she runs over. “How goes the hunt?”

They spend a few moments commiserating over their finds, and she wanders away.

“Wait,” Newt says, and he looks at his watch. Sure enough, Mothra is hovering at the three, and he squints at Hermann. “Did you cancel a class so you could go mushroom hunting?”

Hermann blinks.

“Of course, I put it to a vote first. Happily, a great number of my students are from Eastern Europe this year and understood the gravity of the situation. And it’s such a lovely day.”

“You know how often you like to call me ridiculous?” Newt laughs. “Am I allowed a mulligan after today?”

“You require special dispensations to be ridiculous now? Bureaucratic foolery doesn’t suit you.”

“Mmm, love you too.”

“Then get up here and kiss me.”

Newt does, and maybe he’s getting to be a good kisser because he manages to distract his husband from the important mushroom work, if only for a minute.

“Thought I saw a felled tree up ahead,” He breathes against Hermann’s lips. “Birch, I think.”

“You  _ think?  _ Is it a birch or not?”

“Not really my expertise…”

“It’s an incredibly recognizable tree, Newton.”

“Fine, it’s a birch! Now I know these morels you’re crazy for seem to like…”

“Enough talk,” Hermann huffs and puts his knife away. “I daren’t say we’ll be that lucky.”

“Aw, have a little faith,” Newt says, though he knows since they started hunting here, they’ve never found morels in the wild, just at the farmer’s market, procured by luckier, more experienced sojourners. But the day is hardly wasted; they have a respectable collection which won’t kill them, and an afternoon spent in each other’s company rather than apart.

**Author's Note:**

> frawgkid is where I can be reached. if you have a specific yen for older gentlemen living together and taking nature walks i guess that's the place.


End file.
